Star Wars Episode VIII Delayed to December 15, 2017

Disney recently announced Star Wars: Episode VIII is being delayed to December 15, 2017.

The force is sad in this one as Disney has announced that the as-yet-untitled Star Wars: Episode VIII is getting pushed back from May 2017 to December 15 2017. Instead, Disney is moving up Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, making no star wars fan happy in the least.

Rumours are swirling around the reasons for the delay, which could come down to a couple of things: the December release, which was the first for a Star Wars film, did so well that Disney wants to capitalize on that market again. The second is that rewrites will push back the start of filming

Borys Kit of the hollywood reporter confirmed a source that said the rewrites were due to overwhelmingly positive reaction to the new characters of Rey, Poe and Finn.

I've heard from several sources the rewrites are positive, based on audience reaction to the new characters. People loved them.

It’s interesting that Disney had so little faith in the new characters, to the point where some sources in the toy industry have said that Disney thought Kylo Ren would be the character that people would connect with. Let me get this straight – Disney’s marketing people thought that people would connect more with a character (mild spoilers) whose face we don’t even see until later in the film and is an evil, whiny brat – over a delightful, kind hearted, funny and brave character like Rey? Or a scamp like Poe Dameron?

Founder of the non-profit Heroic Girls John Marcotte corroborated the Lucasfilm source around the lack of Rey toys:

“I’ve spoken with Disney people, and they were completely blindsided by the reaction to the new Star Wars characters,” he tells Boehm. “They put a huge investment into marketing and merchandizing the Kylo Ren character. They presumed he would be the big breakout role from the film. They were completely surprised when it was Rey everyone identified with and wanted to see more of.”

Apparently toymakers had so little faith in the character of Rey they were told to reduce the number of Rey toys being made. And now that she’s proven to be such a popular character, Kylo Ren toys are sitting on shelves and people have taken up a #wheresrey hashtag in response.

So it seems that this unanticipated love of the characters may have led to some rewrites to make them more front and center in the next film. Which begs the question – who exactly was going to be the star of Episode VIII? BB-8?

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